The EU is in charge of our food hygiene regulations

EUROPEAN Union rules are preventing the Government from banning imports of processed meat from countries implicated in the horsemeat scandal.

PUBLISHED: 00:01, Wed, Feb 13, 2013

The EU is going to prevent the UK from banning the import of meats linked with the horsemeat crisis

Now it has emerged that it was also an EU regulation that triggered the crisis in the first place.

A new rule banning scraps separated from bone by low-pressure hoses from being designated as meat appears to have led suppliers to seek even cheaper alternative sources of material for processed meat products.

It is a classic example of the law of unintended consequences whereby a measure designed to improve food hygiene has had the opposite effect.

David Cameron has been pushing the government to leave the EU in recent months

"The most worrying part of the whole furore is what it reveals about the powerlessness of those to whom we grant a mandate to run the country."

But the most worrying part of the whole furore is what it reveals about the powerlessness of those to whom we grant a mandate to run the country.

We are unable to hold our elected representatives to account for the horsemeat scandal because they have passed responsibility over to officials at the European Commission.

There is no point in urging Environment Secretary Owen Paterson to “get a grip” because he is not the person in charge.